Revised school budgets approved

Two chool districts that fell short of getting sufficient voter approval of their 2013-14 budgets last month had better luck Tuesday.

BY MICHAEL RANDALL

Two school districts that fell short of getting sufficient voter approval of their 2013-14 budgets last month had better luck Tuesday.

Valley Central school district residents voted 2,282 to 1,419 in favor of a scaled-back version of the budget defeated May 21. There were about 200 more yes votes and 800 fewer no votes than the first election.

In the Cornwall district, voters overwhelmingly approved the revamped version of the 2013-14 budget, with 2,215 voting yes and 950 voting no. Assistant Superintendent for Business Harvey Sotland said that amounted to almost 1,000 more voters for this second vote.

"The community came out this time," Sotland said.

This time, only a simple majority of votes was needed to adopt budgets in the two districts. Last time, both were trying to override their state-mandated tax levy cap, which needed a majority of 60 percent plus one vote.

Valley Central's revised $89.36 million budget proposal was about $3 million less than the one voters rejected May 21, and $800,775 less than the 2012-13 budget.

Greg Dale, the district's assistant superintendent for business, said those reductions made the difference.

"We made a lot of cuts to get here," Dale said.

To preserve half the funding for the kindergarten program, as well as funding for varsity sports and extracurricular activities, the school board cut 4.5 teaching positions.

Had this budget been defeated, the school board would have had to find another $2 million in cuts to meet contingency requirements.

Cornwall, which fell just two votes short of the majority needed to override its tax cap May 21, cut another $315,000 from the defeated $62.6 million spending plan.

The cuts included four positions, including a business and a social studies teacher, a high school clerk and a custodian.

The school board also trimmed about $27,000 from the athletic budget.

Cornwall would have had to find another $1.5 million in cuts if this budget was defeated and the district had to go to a contingency plan. Sotland figured that was the reason for the higher turnout and the decisive vote.